


Achievement Unlocked - Now Take It Back

by summerartist



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alien Biology, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, Gen, Hiccups, Humor, Imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23598673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerartist/pseuds/summerartist
Summary: If humans can teach themselves sword swallowing and deep sea diving, then surely a Time Lord can teach himself how to hiccup. Ten figures it out, much to his dismay.
Comments: 26
Kudos: 37





	Achievement Unlocked - Now Take It Back

**Author's Note:**

> (A special thanks to InsideTheTardis for always spurring writers and artists onward <3)

The Doctor tried to be chivalrous to other species whenever possible. His supreme biology granted him many advantages, including the ability to maintain his health for longer stretches of time without ingesting fluid. The Doctor and Donna’s trip to the desert oasis had been enlightening, if a bit warm. The Doctor shared his water freely with his companion. He seldom took a drink himself.

He had not felt any of the effects until they had reached the Tardis. He smacked his lips, inputting the coordinates for the Time Vortex out of habit. He felt his throat shudder and then something miraculous happened.

“Donna! Donna, come here. Listen, I’m hiccuping. I’m actually hiccuping!” The Doctor ran to the kitchen where he knew Donna was sitting with another replenishing beverage.

He was so swept up in his excitement that he was considerably startled when her expression reflected only mild bemusement. Perhaps the import of it was somehow escaping her.

“I’ve been practicing! I have all the right parts, epiglottis, glottis, lungs -hic…You see, it was the trigger of the respiratory bypass that was cumbersome. Eliminate that through dehydration, and then contracting muscles equal contracting epiglottis. Brilliant! -hic!”

“Oh!” Donna’s eyes widened slightly. “Glad you figured it out.” She somehow managed to make it sound nearly devoid of emotion.

“Don’t you see, my species has never hiccuped! No one tries to inhibit their respiratory bypass. Well, statistically someone might -hic Oh, this is uncomfortable. Why didn’t anyone tell me this was uncomfortable?” His face crumpled with distress as he rubbed at his throat. It felt stretched and sore. Without his respiratory bypass kicking in, it was making him short of breath as well.

Now he had an insight as to why other species became ill-tempered during this. The Doctor had thought it was due to embarrassment. He didn’t let his disillusionment dampen his spirits for long though.

“Still! New territor-hic Ooo. Wow, that is a new sensation.” His features oscillated wildly between a smile and a frown.

Donna was beginning to smirk at him. He supposed it must have been amusing to see him try to make up his mind about it. So far, it was starting to tick his dislike boxes.

“Hic- Does it have a purpose?”

“You learned to hiccup without checking if it had a purpose?” Donna asked incredulously.

“Well, I knew it provided a comedic interlude, but mostly I just wanted to see if I had the capability. Hic- Turns out, I do. Can you help me make it stop?”

The Doctor quickly became impatient due to there being no “foolproof” cure for a newly hiccuping Time Lord. Donna mostly forced water and juice on him to help combat his dehydration. The hiccups stopped after a while of drinking. There was a great deal of choking and spluttering in the meantime, however.

“Donna?”

“What?” She sighed.

“Remind me to never hiccup again.”

* * *

“Are we still on for today?” Donna asked.

“Of course.”

“Thank you,” Donna told him gratefully.

A peculiar look came over the Doctor’s features. “I’m sure your Mum is fine. Didn’t Wilf say she was getting better?”

“Yeah, but I need to see for myself. He’d tell me anything to keep us traveling and he’ll need my help if her back still isn’t better.”

The Doctor merely nodded, no doubt realizing that she could not be dissuaded or comforted on the matter. As he worked the Tardis controls, a strained breath of air came out.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Donna groaned.

“What?” He seemed alarmed by the tone of her voice.

“Go get yourself some water, you prawn. You’re hiccuping again.”

The Doctor held up his hands. “I just had some, I swear. It’s not dehydration this time. In fact, I haven’t been trying to hiccup since the desert.”

Donna was at least grateful that he hadn’t been attempting to replicate the uncomfortable circumstances. It seemed that his scientific curiosity knew when to quit...sometimes. Her Mum was already enough of a handful without adding him to the mix.

The Doctor made a tiny noise, as if trying to stifle it.

“Probably nerves,” Donna clucked sympathetically.

“Wha- I have not got nerves!” He protested. “Time Lords don’t get nerves.”

Donna looked at him dubiously as he continued making quiet strained sounds. As they touched down, he was nearing full volume again. He lingered in the Tardis for as long as possible while Donna hugged her Gramps. Donna soon was shoving the door open with her foot and pulling the Time Lord out to greet her Grandad.

Wilf chuckled as he wrapped up the shuddering alien in an embrace. He patted the Doctor on the back, advising him to hold his breath or to go get something to drink. The Doctor clung to him for a little longer than usual.

“This is only the second time he’s got them, but they seem to be involuntary now,” Donna explained. “Gramps, is Mum-?”

“Ask her yourself.” Wilf motioned towards the front door.

They all turned to see Sylvia coming across the green, walking swiftly and asking where in the universe they had gone off to. She sounded very cross and the Doctor’s hiccups mysteriously vanished in that moment. Only Donna seemed to notice and she shot the Doctor a knowing smile.

* * *

Jack grimaced as he flexed his hands. The roughly hewn cuffs had obviously not been made with different wrist sizes in mind. He glanced over at his cellmate, who was similarly trapped in a standing position with their back to the stone wall.

“They were really having a bad day, huh. So, come up with a plan yet?”

The Doctor stared resolutely ahead.

“Take your time. I’m in no rush,” Jack said cheekily.

He eyed the make of the cuffs and the seams that directly connected to the wall. He tried to determine if there was anything within reach that could prove useful. The Doctor made a soft sound as if about to say something. His jaw clenched and he shook.

“Doc?”

A very clear hiccup echoed through the cell. Jack blinked and raised his eyebrows at the Time Lord. The Doctor kept up the pretense of ignoring him as the strained noises rocked through him. His chest expanded and contracted with the force of the sounds. The cuffs rattled as his body jolted.

Jack remembered Donna telling him about the Doctor’s recent case of hiccups during a visit to her family. She had determined it to be the result of nervous energy. Jack softened.

“We’ve been in worse scrapes than this. Don’t worry, we’ll find a way out,” Jack said lightly.

The Doctor turned to scowl at him. “I wasn’t- hic -worried.” He said the words through gritted teeth.

Jack had to keep his smile in check as the Doctor’s gangly body shook with the involuntary noises. Pinned by the sturdy cuffs, he made somewhat of a woebegone picture. The Doctor started muttering to himself about the exact composition of the air interfering with biological functions. His muttering was punctuated by more gasps for air.

“As cute as this new talent of yours is, do you mind thinking up something that could get us out of here? I have a microexplosive in the left pouch on my belt. If we could attach it to the wall...” Jack started rattling off his plan.

“Explosives, why are you talking about explosives?” The Doctor grunted.

He groaned and then there was the rustle of fabric and the sound of his shoes tip-tapping against the floor. He gave a sudden squirm. Jack’s mouth dropped open as the Doctor stepped away from the wall, rubbing his wrists.

“Don’t have my sonic on me, but nevermind. -Hic!”

* * *

The Tardis was elated today. The gravitational wave they were currently paralleling with was extra strong, from the formation of a particularly large black hole. She had always had a proclivity for gravity.

Her interior lights flickered in colors indistinguishable to the human retina, but they were visible to a certain Time Lord. He smiled softly and stroked her interior strut. She hummed in his mind, eager to form a connection with him so that he could enjoy this along with her. He declined this time and instead urged his ship to fully enjoy this moment for herself. She wrapped herself up in the gravitational wave like a cold individual enjoying a warm blanket.

The Doctor went back to puttering about, still smiling. Donna had yet to rise. He had woken her up early for the past several days so it was prudent to let her sleep in, for both their sakes. The Tardis fed for another hour 12 minutes and ten point nine seconds before she announced her arrival back in his head. She was almost blindingly bright, full of energy. She allowed the Doctor to bask unabashedly in it.

It was like he was letting her cup his head between warm palms. He was made vulnerable to her as he stretched his mind into her grasp. Her warm touch sent shivers down his physical spine. He praised his powerful darling, expressing his regard for her. The Tardis sent her praise back and began to use both of their languages to tell him something. The Doctor listened attentively. He felt warmth suffuse his cheeks as she carried on in her sing-song voice.

Donna entered the control room, neatly dressed and recently showered. She shook out her sightly damp hair. She opened her mouth, about to wish the Doctor a good morning. What she found made her blink several times.

There was nothing out of place, no tools, alien artifacts, or bizarre instruments strewn about that would somehow create a life saving device for future adventures. Instead, the Doctor sat sprawled on the floor. His hair and coat were a little wild looking. His face was a funny color, a sort of dusky orange.

“Are you alright?” She asked him.

The Doctor started hiccuping. His diaphragm jumped as he turned more orange. Donna knelt down beside him, watching as his face showed an indecipherable but intense emotion.

“Stop it,” the Doctor muttered. He covered his face with his hands as his body rocked with another hiccup.

“Stop what?”

“Not- hic- talking to you.” He had turned a sort of turmeric color.

Before Donna could become too concerned, the Tardis assured her that the Time Lord was merely experiencing an embarrassed reaction. It was then that Donna remembered the color of Time Lord blood beneath the skin. She realized that he was blushing.

“Oi, what’s going on?” She felt very out of the loop and still unsure as to what she had stumbled upon.

The Doctor seemed unlikely to enlighten her, but the Tardis soon cleared things up by showing her the tendrils of psychic energy connected to him. The Tardis let her glimpse some of the positive thoughts that she was relaying to the Doctor. Some of it was untranslatable into English, but Donna got the gist.

“So, you fell on the floor and got the hiccups because the Tardis started complimenting you,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You stroke your own ego at least a dozen times a day, why should the Tardis make a difference?”

His next hiccup came out as more of an “Eep” sound. He was less orange, but seemed contemplative. He shrugged and readjusted his position. He gradually got to his feet.

“’Suppose she just has a way with words.” He cleared his throat and made a show of going back to the console to tweak the flux manipulator.

Donna watched him. She supposed that the person you were complimented by made all the difference. The Tardis was one of the Doctor’s oldest friends. She knew everything about him, including his embarrassing and unorthodox habits. Donna was glad that such habits were nature’s way of keeping him humble and a little more transparent.

The End.


End file.
